Our camping adventure and the story of our death defying dog

Howard Prairie

We were able to have our first camping trip of the summer this last weekend at Howard Prairie. Seems a camping weekend with Jason's brother and his family is an annual way to celebrate Jason's birthday. The weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. Our campsite was perfect..at the end of the loop, close to the bathrooms and a good view of the lake with a few short steps to our own little beaches.

We took our wonderdog Rigley. For those who know...his main wonder is that he's still alive. Jed claims he's like a cat, having nine lives. He's survived eating De-con, the rat poison, a rattlesnake bite, and near drowning two times. The second drowning was just this last weekend.

Like most labs, he has a deep love for the water and swimming. The trick with him is that you MUST throw his dummy BEFORE he gets in the water, or at least make sure you throw one for him in front of him so he knows what he's swimming for. This dog refuses to come back to shore unless he has successfully secured his dummy. So, I know you are all thinking, what happens if he misses, or doesn't see the dummy? Well, he swims....FOREVER. The first incident, my Dad can tell you with much emotion and detail. This second event happened while Jed, my brother-in-law, took Rigs down to the shore for a swim. He knows very well about Rigley's swim problem. After a few minutes of him down at the shore, we hear Jed frantically calling Rigley's name to no avail and then a panicked call of help for Jason to come quickly. Yep...our wonderdog had missed the dummy and was swimming, and swimming and just kept swimming.

Now we have Jed, Jason, Casandra, Kylie, Saiah, Brianna and myself down there YELLING at Rigley to come back. I was hysterical. The dog would just not turn around. I had this sinking feeling we were all going to witness our poor pup going under the water and losing him forever. It's truly a TERRIBLE expereince, one I've now had to watch two times. As I was screaming for anybody on the lake with a boat to please help us and praying to God to please have Rigley turn around, Jason came back with his binoculars to see what Rigley was doing. Yes, he was really that far away. With the binoculars we noticed that miraculously, Rigs had turned around and was coming BACK!! Praise God! Oh, what relief. Now, I was just praying that he had enough energy to swim all the way back to shore. Sure enough, he made it. Not only that, but he bounded up to shore, and was of course, ready to go out for more. Our dog is delusional.

If you click to look at the picture larger size, you will notice the buoy Rigley swam out to. It's at the top right of the picture.

So, that was our excitement. We had a wonderful time camping, relaxing, laughing, building hot campfires, watching the girls play, eating, hiking and dipping our toes into the lake. Saiah and Kylie were even thrilled to find that they were walking on two dead fish. Really. They thought it was cool. Cas on the other hand....not so much.

Saiah learned to skip rocks

Hanging out by the campfire

Casandra chopping up a log

Saiah sitting by her campfire she made

Jason's dream of Mountain Biking

Jed Mountain Biking